Can Your Community Compete for Biotech Locations? 

 

By Jay Garner, CEcD, CCE, FM, HLM

President, Garner Economics LLC

 

With the BIO 2010 Conference coming up May 3-6 in Chicago, I felt it was timely to republish an article I was asked to write for the September 2009 issue of Site Selection Magazine on biotech location strategies.  With hundreds of economic development organizations attending from the United States  and over a thousand EDO's from around the globe participating in the BIO conference, how can communities differentiate themselves to win a coveted biotech facility? Read the full article by clicking here.  

Jay Garner, President of Garner Economics, is pleased to spotlight Advisory Board Member Dave Porter from the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce. 

 

The Austin region has had considerable success of recent in their business recruitment efforts.  There aren't many communities in the midst of this recession that can boast of their current recruitment achievements.  Austin's success includes:  Hanger Orthopedic Group announced they would relocate its HQ from Bethesda, Maryland to Austin (230 jobs). In February, Legal Zoom, a Los Angeles web based legal services company announced Austin as the location for a regional headquarters that will bring 600 jobs to the region.  In early March, Facebook announced their first expansion outside of Palo Alto (200 jobs) for a regional operations center. 

 

Garner Economics is proud to have authored Austin's international strategy in 2006.  A bit about Dave:

He's an expert in economic development with 25 years experience. Dave joined the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce in 2004 as Sr. Vice President.  Porter leads the region's Opportunity Austin initiative, a five-year, five-county economic development plan aimed at creating 117,000 jobs and a regional economic boost of nearly $30 billion by 2013.

Porter joined the Greater Austin Chamber from the Asheville, NC, Chamber of Commerce where he led the Asheville economic development effort. Porter won the 2000 Governor's Award for Economic Development, established a Technology Council to assist in attracting high technology businesses to the Asheville area and created a Rapid Response Team of community leaders to provide support when businesses made site visits for relocation or expansion purposes. 

Porter is a Certified Economic Developer.  Before joining the Asheville Chamber, Porter served as a Business Development Consultant for the State of Kansas where he developed relationships with site selection consultants and national real estate firms throughout the U.S. He has also served as Vice President of Marketing for the North Carolina Global TransPark Authority as well as holding various positions within economic development for the Wichita/Sedgwick County Partnership for Growth, Inc. in Wichita, KS, where he entered the profession of economic development.

Porter has a bachelor's in business administration from Wichita State University and certification from the Economic Development Institute at the University of Oklahoma.

We're proud to have Dave on our Board.

Click here to read more about our Board of Advisors.